ma, a strange woman on the street said to me, 'My, but ain't you got beautiful hair!'”

The mother smiled, for the compliment was well merited, but she gasped as the child innocently continued her account: "I said to her, 'I am very glad to have you like my hair, but I am sorry to hear you use the word “ain't"!"—E. R. Bickford.

NAN-"That young man from Boston is an interesting talker, so far as you can understand what he says; but what a queer dialect he uses."

FAN "That isn't dialect; it's vocabulary. the difference?"

Can't you tell

A Bostonian died, and when he arrived at St. Peter's gate he was asked the usual questions:

"What is your name, and where are you from?"

The answer was, "Mr. So-and-So, from Boston."

"You may come in," said Peter, "but I know you won't like it."

There was a young lady from Boston,
A two-horned dilemma was tossed on,
As to which was the best,

To be rich in the west

Or poor and peculiar in Boston.

BOXING

John L. Sullivan was asked why he had never taken to giving boxing lessons.

"Well, son, I tried it once," replied Mr. Sullivan. "A husky young man took one lesson from me and went home a little the worse for wear. When he came around for his second lesson he said: 'Mr Sullivan, it was my idea to learn enough about boxing from you to be able to lick a certain young gentleman what I've got it in for. But I've changed my mind,' says he. 'If it's all the same to you, Mr. Sullivan, I'll send this young gentleman down here to take the rest of my lessons for me.'"

BOYS

A certain island in the West Indies is liable to the periodical advent of earthquakes. One year before the season of these terrestrial disturbances, Mr. X., who lived in the danger zone, sent his two sons to the home of a brother in England, to secure them from the impending havoc.

Evidently the quiet of the staid English household was disturbed by the irruption of the two West Indians, for the returning mail steamer carried a message to Mr. X., brief but emphatic:

"Take back your boys; send me the earthquake."

Aunt Eliza came up the walk and said to her small nephew: "Good morning, Willie. Is your mother in?"

"Sure she's in,” replied Willie truculently. "D'you s'pose I'd be workin' in the garden on Saturday morning if she wasn't?"

An iron hoop bounded through the area railings of a suburban house and played havoc with the kitchen window. The woman waited, anger in her eyes, for the appearance of the hoop's owner. Presently he came.

"Please, I've broken your window," he said, "and here's Father to mend it."

And, sure enough, he was followed by a stolid-looking workman, who at once started to work, while the small boy took his hoop and ran off.

"That'll be four bits, ma'am," announced the glazier when the window was whole once more.

"Four bits!" gasped the woman. "But your little boy broke it-the little fellow with the hoop, you know. You're his father, aren't you?"

The stolid man shook his head.

"Don't know him from Adam," he said. "He came around to my place and told me his mother wanted her winder fixed. You're his mother, aren't you?"

And the woman shook her head also.-Ray Trum Nathan.

See also Egotism; Employers and employees; Office boys.

BREAKFAST FOODS

Pharaoh had just dreamed of the seven full and the seven blasted ears of corn.

"You are going to invent a new kind of breakfast food," interpreted Joseph.--Judge.

BREATH

One day a teacher was having a first-grade class in physiology. She asked them if they knew that there was a burning fire in the body all of the time. One little girl spoke up and said:

"Yes'm, when it is a cold day I can see the smoke."

Said the bibulous gentleman who had been reading birth and death statistics: "Do you know, James, every time I breathe a man dies?"

"Then," said James, "why don't you chew cloves?"

BREVITY

An after-dinner speaker was called on to speak on "The Antiquity of the Microbe." He arose and said, "Adam had 'em," and then sat down.

A negro servant, on being ordered to announce visitors to a dinner party, was directed to call out in a loud, distinct voice their names. The first to arrive was the Fitzgerald family, numbering eight persons. The negro announced Major Fitzgerald, Miss Fitzgerald, Master Fitzgerald, and so on.

This so annoyed the master that he went to the negro and said, "Don't announce each person like that; say something shorter."

The next to arrive were Mr. and Mrs. Penny and their daughter. The negro solemnly opened the door and called out, "Thrupence!"

Dr. Abernethy, the famous Scotch surgeon, was a man of few words, but he once met his match--in a woman. She

called at his office in Edinburgh, one day, with a hand badly inflamed and swollen. The following dialogue, opened by the doctor, took place.

"Burn?" "Bruise."

"Poultice."

The next day the woman called, and the dialogue was as follows:

"Better?" "Worse."

"More poultice."

Two days later the woman made another call.

"Better?"

"Well. Fee?"

"Nothing. Most sensible woman I ever saw."

BRIBERY

A judge, disgusted with a jury that seemed unable to reach an agreement in a perfectly evident case, rose and said, “I discharge this jury."

One sensitive talesman, indignant at what he considered a rebuke, obstinately faced the judge.

"You can't discharge me," he said in tones of one standing upon his rights.

"And why not?" asked the surprised judge.

"Because," announced the juror, pointing to the lawyer for the defense, "I'm being hired by that man there!"

BRIDES

"My dear," said the young husband as he took the bottle of milk from the dumb-waiter and held it up to the light, "have you noticed that there's never cream on this milk?"

"I spoke to the milkman about it," she replied, "and he explained that the company always fill their bottles so full that there's no room for cream on top."

"Do you think only of me?" murmured the bride. "Tell me that you think only of me."

"It's this way," explained the groom gently. "Now and then I have to think of the furnace, my dear."

BRIDGE WHIST

"How about the sermon?"

"The minister preached on the sinfulness of cheating at bridge."

"You don't say! Did he mention any names?"

BROOKLYN

At the Brooklyn Bridge.-"Madam, do you want to go to Brooklyn?"

"No, I have to."—Life.

BRYAN, WILLIAM JENNINGS

Some time after the presidential election of 1908, one of Champ Clark's friends noticed that he still wore one of the Bryan watch fobs so popular during the election. On being asked the reason for this, Champ replied: "Oh, that's to keep my watch running."

BUILDINGS

Pat had gone back home to Ireland and was telling about New York.

"Have they such tall buildings in America as they say, Pat?" asked the parish priest.

"Tall buildings ye ask, sur?" replied Pat. "Faith, sur, the last one I worked on we had to lay on our stomachs to let the moon pass."

BURGLARS

A burglar was one night engaged in the pleasing occupation of stowing a good haul of swag in his bag when he was